Three children at nursery have TB

THREE young children who attend a London nursery school have caught tuberculosis after a teacher collapsed with the disease, health officials said yesterday.

The outbreak at Wee Ones, in Wandsworth, south London, began in March when a teacher was diagnosed as having TB six months after first complaining of a cough. Five other children, aged two to five, and four members of staff are having further tests. A further 16 children are being given antibiotics as a precaution. Another 13 children who have left the nursery are being traced.

The three children with TB, believed to be three years old, are being treated with antibiotics at home. Dr Yvonne Doyle, director of public health at Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth health authority, said: "All three are feeling clinically unwell, with typical symptoms such as coughs and lethargy."

Thirty children attend the nursery. The teacher, an English woman, is understood to have become infected while travelling abroad. Dr Doyle said TB in children infected lymph glands rather than lungs. They were rarely infectious to other people. She said that up to 100 other people who had come into close contact with the infected teacher would be screened for the disease.

Dr Doyle added: "We are fairly clear about how the person was infected. She does not pose a risk to the community." The Wandsworth outbreak comes a month after 50 people at, or linked to, a school in Leicester were diagnosed with the disease.

Related Articles

The national TB vaccination programme for teenagers was suspended two years ago after a problem with supplies. Vaccination has been reintroduced in London for 11- to 13-year-olds and will be extended to other areas later this summer.